APRIL 12th 2025
I grew up in Ballyshannon, a small town in the northwest of Ireland in County Donegal. I went to guitar lessons with my brother when I was 10. I had no interest in playing the guitar when I was 10! I wanted to be out playing in the woods that surrounded my home place. I stuck out the lessons for about 2 years and then eventually I quit. Thankfully my brother carried on playing and it wasn't until I was around 15 that I started to play the guitar again. I remember going to see my brother Seamus playing at a local battle of the bands and I think it was that event that inspired me to start playing the guitar again.
In my early days of playing, I was really into Guns'n'Roses, Led Zeppelin, Rory Gallagher, Eric Clapton, Thin Lizzy, AC/DC - The classic rock scene in general. I formed a band in school with a few friends called Moonchild. We played a few small gigs, mainly at local school events and the odd battle of the bands. When I was around 17 the band line up changed. My brother Seamus joined the band as the new bassist and my school friend Sean Reynolds stayed on as the drummer. We practiced 3 nights a week in a small shed, we frequently had massive arguments over the smallest things, I think the drama and the tension brought an energy to the band that it somehow worked! Our setlist included a fair few Rory Gallagher, Thin Lizzy & AC/DC numbers. We also covered the likes of My Sharona by The Knack, All Right Now by Free, Just What I Needed by The Cars. The crack was great when we weren't killing each other!
Over time like most bands the energy died, and things changed. I started playing solo acoustic gigs, my repertoire was very different to the one that I played with Moonchild. I always had a love for film music and classical style guitar as well as the heavy rock. Without knowing it at the time I was developing my own style of playing. I don't read music, and I have very little musical theory. In some ways I think that my lack of musical knowledge was a help in that I was feeling blindly with no rules to follow. One of my first compositions was Sleep Walking, the first track on my new album Spellbound. I was about 16 at the time that I put together the piece. So, looking back, it's taken me over 20 years to record my first musical idea. At the time of writing this I have just sent my new album Spellbound to a studio in Donegal to be mixed professionally. I feel like I have accomplished something in finally recording the music that has been in my head for so many years.
So how did the forestry thing come about? I started buying lorry loads of wood when I was 16. I would cut the wood up with a chainsaw and an axe and sell it locally as firewood. It was hard work for little return, but I loved it at the time. In 2008 I bought a few acres of forestry. I wanted somewhere that I could get my own wood and possibly build a log cabin. I have a long-term plan to convert the forestry to native woodland. The land is currently planted with Sitka Spruce, Japanese Larch, Sycamore & Oak.
A major storm hit Ireland on January 24th, 2025, storm Eowyn. About 30% of my forest was blown over. At the time of writing this on Saturday April 12th, 2025, I have about 15 months left to harvest the windblown trees before they begin to rot. I could leave the trees blown over to rot and let the wood regenerate itself, over time a mixture of trees would grow naturally. However, I need the income and the forest in its current state is a dangerous place with the trees that are unstable and blown over. To achieve my long-term goal of establishing native woodland in place of the current plantation I need to be able to live without any income from the harvesting of trees in the future. I will always be able to harvest firewood over the course of my lifetime coinciding with the growth of the newly established native woodland but there would never be a point in time that there would be any high value income to be taken from the woods.
I would like to try and build a small cabin, plant an orchard, make a few ponds, establish hedgerows on the natural ditch lines throughout the woods. The timing of the storm isn't great for me in that I've been working on finishing the Spellbound album. My focus was on playing music and solely working on promoting the Spellbound album, but the forest situation has changed that. Between now and this time next year I will be trying to get my forest partially harvested and replanted. I’m considering my options at present as to how to proceed. The show must go on though! The Spellbound album will be released in October followed by a few live performances early 2026. Until the next chapter!
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Mark.
